


Anyone can... Bake?

by AnneCumberbatch



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Baking, COVID-19 Quarantine, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Implied Sexual Content, John Watson Baking, Kissing, M/M, Mentioned Mrs Hudson, Napping, No COVID related angst, Quarantine, References to the US The Office, Sherlock is a Brat, The Great British Bake Off References, The UK the office does not exist in this universe, Week 15, do not copy to another site, slight angst, small explosion, title is a ratatouille reference by the way, very slight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24956794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnneCumberbatch/pseuds/AnneCumberbatch
Summary: The one where John attempts baking during quarantine for the first time. Things go… not exactly according to plan.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Mrs. Hudson & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 48





	Anyone can... Bake?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplyclockwork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyclockwork/gifts), [OmalleyMeetsTibbs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmalleyMeetsTibbs/gifts).



> This was inspired by what happened to me today.
> 
> Fun facts: The bread baked in this fic and by me today was Paul Hollywood's Classic Cottage Loaf as found on Collection 5, episode 3 of The Great British Bake Off. Fantastic recipe - turned out really beautifully. 
> 
> Recipe: https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/recipes/all/paul-hollywood-classic-cottage-loaf/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“John, what are you doing?”

John looked up from the kitchen table where he was covered up to his elbows in flour. “I’m making bread.”

“You’re-” Sherlock blinked. “… why?”

John shrugged and turned back to the large glass bowl in front of him, where he was mixing a sticky mixture of flour, yeast, chopped up butter, and salt with one hand and gradually pouring water into the bowl with the other. “It’s something new to do.”

“Just because the rest of the world is learning how to bake during quarantine does not mean this is something that must extend to you.” Sherlock crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

“Oh, shove off, will you? Go watch more of _The Office_. You can catch up to where I left off last night.”

Sherlock sighed and walked into the living room. John could hear the slight click of the remote buttons as he turned on the Firestick. Sherlock had ordered it for them and second for Mrs. Hudson during quarantine. It had certainly made their lives of never really the house (aside from a once a day short walk as sanctioned by the government) a lot easier through having the different streaming services so easily accessible. It was week 15 and they had gone through phases of driving each other absolutely up the wall, crippling depression, anxiety, being so restless they both thought they were going to die, and long stretches of lazy days, both men not moving from the sofa any more than absolutely necessary. They had even become plant parents to a beautiful little basil plant named Chester that John kept on a small table near the window. John had taken the opportunity to watch his favourite shows with Sherlock, moving swiftly through the two latest seasons of _Doctor Who_ , all of _Broadchurch_ , _Black Books_ , _IT Crowd_ , and all 10 seasons of _Friends_. They had just started watching _The Office_ on Prime. Sherlock had scoffed at it for the entirety of the first season, much like he had done for every show they had watched so far, but, also like every show they had watched so far, he had swiftly become reluctantly engaged in the characters and so they were just finishing the 5th season and Sherlock was very committed to the saga. John had finished the last two episodes of season 6 the previous night while Sherlock had been too engrossed in a new pathology book that had finally arrived in the mail to possibly take a break from it. If Sherlock took the time while John was baking to catch up, they could move on to season 6 tonight. 

About an hour earlier, John had sat in his chair, enjoying the Saturday morning, drinking his morning cuppa and watching a previous episode of The Great British Bake Off on his laptop. _I could do that. I could bake something. Some of those recipes don’t look_ that _hard._ The sight of the warm bread coming out of oven in that episode caused his stomach to rumble and his mouth to water. He paused the episode and quickly researched bread recipes he could try. After some speedy googling, John came across Paul Hollywood’s Cottage Loaf recipe. Skimming it, it seemed relatively simple. They had most of the ingredients – John googled if butter could be substituted for lard. It could. – and it didn’t require any fancy equipment. He could definitely do this. Which is how Sherlock discovered him in the kitchen, having sanitized the table within an inch of his life, half covered in flour. 

Having gotten rid of his distraction of a partner, John continued with mixing the ingredients together with his hand, grimacing slightly at how sticky the mixture was. It was clumping between his fingers and squishing as he continued mixing. He lifted his hand to try and remove the gooey dough from his fingers and it merely got attached to his other hand. With a brief eyeroll to the heavens, John plunged both hands into the bowl _might as well go all in_ and managed to wrangle the dough into submission. Only having to add a little bit more water, he formed it into a lumpy shape and removed his hands, heading to the sink to wash off the glumpy bits still clinging to him. _Gross_. _They don’t show this part on GBBO_.

Turning back to the table, he rubbed some flour onto the table’s surface and plopped the sticky dough onto the table. With a glance at his laptop, resting in front of him, screen glowing with the recipe, he started to knead the dough. He sprinkled a little flour on top and then pressed the heel of his left hand solidly into the center of the dough, miming the motions he had seen the bakers do on the show. He pressed his hand forward, rolling the dough out, then pulled the farthest edge, folded it back towards him, swiveled the dough 90° and repeated the action.

Sherlock got up from where he had settled on the sofa, watching the show and left the living room, moving towards their chairs and quietly into the kitchen to get a cup of water, when he stopped and stared. John’s shoulder muscles were rolling powerfully as he worked the dough on the tabletop, rotating which arm he kneaded with, one shoulder, then the other, working with intense concentration. Sherlock’s legs weakened and he was about to comment when John ceased and turned towards the counter and startled, seeing him. “Jesus, don’t sneak up on people like- why are you looking at me like that?”

Sherlock’s eyes raked him up and down. “Baking suits you.”

John blinked. “… Thank you.” He grabbed the bottle of olive oil from the counter and looked back at Sherlock. “Are… are you turned on right now?”

Sherlock smirked and moved towards him, licking his lips. “Like I said, baking suits you.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa now.” John bent his arm and pressed his elbow against Sherlock’s chest, blocking his predatory advance and protecting his flour-covered hands. “I have to set this aside to rise. So, go finish the show in there and give me five minutes.”

“What if I can’t wait five minutes?” Sherlock ducked around John’s elbow and sidled up behind him. He buried his face in John’s shoulder. “Mm. You smell good.”

John rolled his eyes and shrugged him off. “Five minutes, git, or you don’t get anything. Go on.”

With a dramatic sigh, Sherlock peeled himself off John’s back and trudged back into the living room.

John carefully placed a light amount of oil into another bowl and rubbed it in with a paper towel. He then gently plopped the dough into the bowl and covered it with a tea towel. Setting it on the table, he cleared and cleaned the table of the ingredients and the mess he had made while kneading the dough. Once that was clean, he set a timer for – checking the recipe again – three hours. He closed his laptop and rubbed his hands together. That was all he could do until the dough rose. He looked up to the doorway to the living room and saw Sherlock leaning against the doorframe, a smug smile on his face. John rolled his eyes and reached his hand out to him. “Come here, you.” Sherlock folded into his arms like he was created solely to be held by John. John smiled as he hugged him tightly. “Could eat you right up.”

Sherlock hummed deeply in his chest and raised his eyebrows. “I was just thinking the same.

Three hours later found both men lying in their bed, the sheet tugged loosely overtop as they slept. Hair awry and lips swollen, Sherlock’s head was tucked just beneath John’s chin, ear pressed to John’s chest, soothed by the audible heartbeat, calm and steady. John’s arm was flung around him, keeping him close. Suddenly, a loud beeping blared throughout the flat, emanating from the kitchen. John startled awake, jerking into a sitting position, tossing Sherlock off him and onto the bed. Sherlock woke with a pitiful whine. “John!”

John blinked blearily. “Oh, shit, the bread.” He scrambled out of the bed and grabbed one of Sherlock’s dressing gown off the back of the door before stumbling towards the kitchen, his legs struggling to remember how to coordinate. He rolled up the sleeves and washed his hands at the sink before moving to the table and opening his laptop. He blinked at the screen before his brain finally caught up with his eyes and understood the instructions. He rubbed some flour onto the tabletop and plopped his risen dough onto the surface. John craned his neck over the table and muttered the directions to himself before glancing down at the dough. _Right. Right, you can do this_. He started folding the dough into itself, smiling at how puffy it had become. After folding it in a few times, he gently started to tug apart a third of the dough. The dough refused to part. His brow furrowed and he tugged harder. The dough still refused to separate. The muscles in John’s arms bunched as he tightened his grip and ripped the dough into two sections with a brief grunt of exertion. A snicker drew his attention up from his dough and he rolled his eyes at Sherlock who was covering his mouth, dressed in a dressing gown, not having bothered to tie it. “My strong man.”

“Shut up.” John muttered gruffly and turned back to the recipe. He set aside the 1/3 section and moulded the dough as instructed, folding it and pressing it down and eventually rounding it out, spinning it in his hands along the floured area as he smoothed the top and tucked the dough under the bottom.

Sherlock watched quietly from across the kitchen table, his eyes focused on John’s movements.

John set the dough aside and repeated the action with the smaller section of dough, creating two semi-identical spheres of dough. Brushing the flour off his hands, John pulled out a round baking stone from the drawer under the oven and sprinkled flour on top, rubbing it in gently. He plopped the larger sphere on the bottom before settling the smaller one gently on top. He glanced at the instructions and hesitated. He glanced at Sherlock before quickly flouring his finger and plunging it through the top centre of the tower of bread dough and pressed it down all the way to the bottom. His finger met with some resistance, but he pushed until it sank deeply into the dough. With a slight bit of effort, he pulled his finger out, which left a puckered hole in the top of the dough.

Sherlock made a choked sound. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Shut up, it’s in the instructions.” John mumbled.

“Surely not.” Sherlock came around the side and peered at the laptop screen. His eyes scanned the recipe, his lips muttering softly as he read. “Oh. So it is. How… strange.”

John shrugged. “I don’t question it.” He turned behind him and grabbed a knife. He gently scored the top sphere with 8 slices, then moved on to the bottom sphere and scored it slightly 10 times.

“The recipe says 8.”

“It’s fine.” John ignored him as he put the knife into the sink.

“You did it wrong.”

“Sherlock, it doesn’t matter.” John ducked under the sink and pulled out a trash bag from the roll.

“It says to create 8 slices and you’ve done 10 times.”

John straightened. “Sherlock, get out of the kitchen.”

Sherlock huffed. “You could at least say _please_.”

John set the bag on the table, grabbed Sherlock’s shoulders, about-faced him and shoved him towards the living room, giving him a parting smack on his buttocks. “Get _out_.”

Sherlock grumbled and left. John could hear him settling himself on the sofa and turning the television back on.

 _You are perfectly capable of baking this bread. The number of scores in the dough doesn’t really matter. … does it?_ John wrapped the dough and the stone round loosely in the new trash bag, making sure there was a significant air bubble in it to encourage inflation of the dough and set the timer for another hour. _Nearly done_. After scanning the instructions further, John turned the oven on and set it to preheated to 230°C, separated the racks inside, and slid a large glass Pyrex pan into the bottom. He closed the oven and nodded. _Alright. Nothing to do but wait until the dough’s finished._ Debating on whether to join Sherlock on the sofa or tidy up the bedroom, thoughts of sliding into stiff sheets that night moved him towards the bedroom. He would have just enough time to tidy up the space and get dressed before the dough was ready to go into the oven.

When the timer went off one hour later, John was ready, standing by. He had been very successful in cleaning the bedroom and was now dressed in pyjama pants and a soft t-shirt that was one of Sherlock’s favourites for him to wear because it “clings to all your muscles so beautifully, John”. He was pretty sure the pyjama pants were actually Sherlock’s because they felt just a little too large and he had had to roll up the legs into cuffs at the bottom. He needed to laundry soon. John filled a liquid measuring cup with 2 cups of cold water and opened the oven. He carefully slid the flour-dusted bread into the top rack, slipped on an oven mitt and slid the glass Pyrex and its rack out slightly to add the water. It was necessary to create the steam to… John wasn’t exactly sure why, but it was in the instructions. He tipped the measuring cup over and cold water poured out. As soon as it hit the hot glass of the Pyrex, it sizzled, startling John slightly. But it created steam, as intended, so he tipped the measuring cup further, pouring a thicker stream of water onto the glass. Suddenly, the glass cracked and shattered! Shards and cubes of glass exploded apart, crashing through the metal spokes of the rack and flinging pieces onto the tile floor with a thunderous crash.

John froze, his eyes wide, the measuring cup still mostly full of water in his hand. “Shit.”

“John??” Sherlock’s voice boomed from the other room in panic. “What the hell was-” he came around the corner, “-that.”

“Don’t come in here.” John held a hand out to him and gingerly picked his way over to where Sherlock was standing at the edge of the kitchen.

They stood side by side in silence for a moment, looking at the chaos that had erupted so unexpectedly. Sherlock cleared his throat. “So… did you forget that when glass changes temperatures abruptly-”

“Yeah, I know.”

“-it does have the tendency-”

“I know, Sherlock.”

“-to shatter.” Sherlock enunciated the last two words slowly and crisply.

John’s shoulders hunched. “Yes. Thank you.”

Sherlock nodded, eyes still taking in all the little pieces of glass everywhere. He reached up and quietly patted John twice on the shoulder in comfort.

John rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Well, well.” Sherlock broke the silence with a smirk. “It’s nice not to have been the one to blow up the kitchen this time. How the turntables.”

John turned and half-seriously punched him in the arm. “Thank you, _Michael_.”

Sherlock gasped dramatically and clutched his arm but couldn’t help the smirk from appearing. “Ow!”

“Shut up.” John looked at the mess. “Well, I’m going to go get my shoes. Can you put some pants on and go ask Mrs. H if we can borrow her vacuum?”

Sherlock nodded and nearly took a step forward before remembering the kitchen was now a perilous place. “I’ll… go around.”

“Good idea, genius.” John clapped him on the shoulder before walking with him to their front door to get his shoes and for Sherlock to get his pants.

Nearly an hour later, the bread dough, safely relocated to the table and ensured to be glass-free, was placed back into the now clean and glass-free oven – which had involved painstakingly picking out little shards of glass with chopsticks – along with a metal pan filled with steaming water. The kitchen was clean, and the glass was in a bin bag. John ran the bag down to Mrs. Hudson’s bins and had also emptied and tidied out her vacuum of glass shards before returning it to her with many thanks. He tread back upstairs, slightly exhausted from the entire ordeal. With a sigh, he collapsed onto the sofa next to Sherlock who had gone back to watching _The Office_. He had barely relaxed when the timer in the kitchen went off. John groaned and went to get up before Sherlock laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll get it. It’s just turning the oven temperature down, correct?”

John nodded and sank back into the sofa. “Turn it down to 190°C, please, darling. Thank you.”

Sherlock winked and padded into the kitchen to adjust the temperature. John heard the beeping of the oven controls and then the beeping of the timer being reset and then a soft, “Ow.”

John sat up sharply. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock appeared in the doorway to the living room with a sheepish expression on his face. “I appear to have stepped on some glass.”

“Shit. And we were so careful in getting it all up…” John stood immediately and went over to him. “I’m sorry, baby. Here.” John helped him sit in John’s seat and knelt in front of him. “Give me your foot, love.”

Sherlock gingerly extended his right foot. “I don’t think it’s very big. But it does hurt.”

John nodded. He scanned the smooth bottom of Sherlock’s foot before spotting the tiny shard, firmly embedded in the transversal arch. “Okay, hold on for a second, I’m going to go get some tweezers, alright?”

Sherlock nodded. “I’m really alright, John.”

John kissed his forehead before fetching the first aid kit. “I know.” Once fetched, he quickly returned to kneeling in front of Sherlock. Obtaining the tweezers, it took only a matter of seconds to grasp the sliver of glass and slide it from Sherlock’s foot. Sherlock winced as it was removed. John tabbed a bit of antiseptic ointment on it and popped a small round plaster on it. “There we go. All better. I would kiss it, but… I’m not kissing the bottom of your foot.”

Sherlock reached down and tugged John towards him. “Better places to kiss me anyways.”

John smiled and gently pressed a kiss to Sherlock’s cheek, his nose, his eyebrow, his other cheek, and finally his lips. “Mm. Indeed.”

Sherlock had closed his eyes. “Mm. Your bread smells excellent, by the way.”

John hopped up and held out a hand. “Fantastic. Come on, let’s finish this episode. By then, the bread should be done.”

Sherlock grasped his hand and allowed himself to be pulled to the sofa and cuddled. The twenty minutes passed quickly. Once the timer went off, John reluctantly untangled himself and moved into the kitchen to silence its blaring and pull his bread out. He set it on the stovetop and gently pried the bread up off the stoneware. He tapped on the bottom. The instructions said to tap and if it sounded hollow, it was done. _What does it mean when bread sounds hollow? Is this hollow? It’s definitely solid. Feels okay… I’m sure this is fine. It’s good._ He quickly transferred the bread to the waiting wire rack and turned off the oven. He looked at his freshly made loaf and grinned. Now, to wait a bit before tasting it, the real test if this had all been worth it or just a giant waste of time.

Forty more minutes later, John got his answer in the form of a half-eaten loaf of beautiful white bread. He and Sherlock had quickly devoured thick warm slices of the perfectly textured bread with a light crispy crust smothered in copious amounts of creamy rich butter. They even plucked a few leaves from Chester and laid them on top of the butter and created literal heaven. It had been the most Sherlock had eaten in several days and the most bread John had eaten in… most likely his entire life. But it was incredibly worth it. Definitely worth all the waiting and the kneading and the glass explosion and the shard in Sherlock’s foot (as stated by said man). John settled happily on the sofa with Sherlock after they had finished, full and content. “Tomorrow, I’m going to try to make a Victorian sponge cake.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Questions, comments, and critiques are always welcome!


End file.
